Harare's park bench grandmas: 'I speak to them and feel a load is lifted off my heart'

The Guardian The Guardian One in four Zimbabweans suffers from mental illness, but untrained female health workers are setting a new benchmark for the treatment of patients.

The therapy room is a patch of waste ground, and the therapist’s couch a wooden bench under a tree. The therapist is an elderly Zimbabwean woman, in a long brown dress and headscarf.

Her patients call her “Grandmother” when they come along to sit on her bench and discuss their feelings, their depression or other mental health issues. (Photo: Community Eye Health//Older woman Niger/flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0)

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